Divided We Fall
by kesdax
Summary: In Common Ground Elizabeth gives up Ladon after Kolya feeds John to the Wraith for the first time.


**A/N: **prompt fill over at lj's comment-fic.

* * *

The day the bombs come down on Atlantis, she knows she made a mistake.

The city shudders beneath the onslaught of weapons, the shield holding on by a very thin thread as she struggles to remain upright. She forces down her own panic even as she glances at the fear stricken faces of her expedition members around her. They aren't going to make it through to the alpha site, not with the Genii permanently dialled in from their end. At least the iris is still holding.

"How much longer until the next window?" John yells.

"Twenty four minutes until the gate becomes unstable!" Rodney yells back, barely heard over the noise of the bombs going off above their heads.

"Will the shield hold that long?" Elizabeth dares to ask.

"No," Rodney says, the finality in his tone more than a little damning. "We'll all be dead by then."

She meets John's eyes over the scientist's head, her hands gripping the Ancient console for support, and she regrets what she sees there. Fear, anger, betrayal.

They are all going to lose everything because she made a mistake. Because she couldn't bear to watch him die.

His eyes stare at her cold and hard. _Have you seen what've you done? _And she has to force herself to look away, hold back the tears and fear and come up with some sort of game plan.

John orders every jumper in the air. If they are going to die then they are going to go out fighting the Genii with everything they are worth. John takes jumper one out himself and as she watches him go she wonders if it was all for nothing, if it was worth having him back here whole and solid for barely a day whilst she gave up her principles and everything she believed in, disregarded his direct order and handed Ladon over without a second thought.

She would do it all over again and that's what scares her.

When the shield finally collapses, they miraculously survive, but it doesn't take long for the Genii soldiers to infiltrate the city. They are vastly outnumbered and the Genii have no qualms about shooting civilian or military personnel alike.

Rodney grabs her hand and drags her away from the gate room as bullets fly over their heads and people fall to the ground behind them. He leads her down, deep into the very bowels of Atlantis, through areas they haven't even begun to explore yet.

Rodney has his gun out and he's firing wildly at the Genii soldiers that seem to be _everywhere_. He snaps back when a bullet hits him in the left shoulder and he goes down, his eyes clenched shut in pain. She'd be screaming his name if she could get her voice to work. Instead she grabs up his 9mm and points it in the direction of the Genii soldiers and is more than a little surprised, a little proud of herself, to see that her hand is only trembling slightly.

Elizabeth Weir fires a gun for the second time in her life (that time when she was possessed by an alien entity barely counts, but it's the only experience she has to go on) and sobs silently in despair when the magazine clicks empty.

The Genii soldier keeps his gun level on her but the expected bullet never comes. Strong hands grip her arms and drag her back to the control tower where she's brought face to face with Acastus Kolya.

"Well, well, well," says Kolya, "Doctor Weir, we meet again."

* * *

It goes down like this:

Rodney's locked out all of Atlantis's computer terminals so the Genii can't get access to the Stargate, the Ancient database, hell, they can't even control turning the lights on and off.

Kolya points a gun at her head and tells her to input her codes to grant them access. When it doesn't work, he smacks her across the face with the butt of his gun and she goes down like a ton of bricks. She touches fingers to her cheek and draws back blood, slick and warm between her fingertips. Kolya aims the gun at her and she knows she's about to die.

When the blast goes off she winces, but it's from the noise more than anything and she wonders absently why she isn't in any pain, why she can't feel anything, as she slumps against the floor. There's shouting all around her but she can't tell if it's the Genii or her own guys or what and it takes her a moment to realise she is still alive, that she hasn't just been shot.

Strong, calloused hands find her face, gently brushing over the wound on her cheek and drawing her eyes up to meet dark brown ones filled only with worry.

"John," she breathes.

He pulls her to him tightly and she can smell the sweat and gunpowder on him and it's the sweetest scent in two galaxies.

"I thought I'd lost you," he whispers in her ear, one hand tangled in her hair the other tight around her waist.

"I'm so, so sorry," she says between sobs and there is a small, quiet part of her that reminds her she is the leader here and she should not be breaking down in the middle of the control room for anyone to see.

"Shh," John says, pulling back slightly to look at her, "you have nothing to be sorry for." He brushes the hair out of her face gently and she can't take her eyes off the slight tinge of grey to his hair, the creases around his eyes that weren't there two days ago.

"Kolya?" she asks.

"Dead," John says, glancing slightly to his left.

She tries not to look, but she needs to know for sure, see it with her own eyes to truly believe it. Kolya lies still, his eyes lifeless, blood darkening the tunic of his uniform.

Acastus Kolya is dead and she feels nothing but relief.

* * *

Later, when the mess has been cleaned up and the dead have been counted she finally allows herself to breathe and grieve.

John finds her out on the balcony, staring lost and alone out at the ocean, imagining the waves washing over her and taking her out to sea.

"Elizabeth?" His voice is quiet, hesitant and she almost doesn't hear him over the noise of the wind and the waves crashing down below.

"This is all my fault," she says. She doesn't look at him. It makes it easier somehow even as she grips the railing in front of her for support as her legs feel like giving out from under her.

"Don't," John says.

He's moved closer, standing just behind and to the left of her, close enough to touch.

"Don't do this to yourself," John says and his voice is like fire in her ears. His hand grips hers on the railing, gently prising her fingers from their claw like grip.

"Nineteen, John," she whispers. "Nineteen men and woman… that's how many we lost."

"I know," he says. "Elizabeth, look at me."

She does and the look he gives her breaks her heart; too much intensity, too much _forgiveness,_ for her to take and she pulls away from him, wrapping her arms around herself in a vain attempt to shut out the cold. But the ice sits bitterly in her heart, chilling her veins.

"I'd be dead right now if you hadn't."

"Don't." Her turn to silence the words she doesn't want to hear.

"The only person whose fault this is," says John, "is Kolya's."

She shakes her head and it feels like her entire body is shuddering right along with it. John pulls her into his arms and she flinches at the contact, his touch sending a blaze through her skin. She resists at first, but then he's there and alive and whole and only a tiny bit older looking. She thinks it looks good on him, the grey making him distinguished, the creases giving his eyes a wise edge.

He holds her for the longest time and she allows herself to use his strength, to lean on him and inhale his scent, his very being, everything that makes him John Sheppard and it gives her the resolve to keep going, to keep fighting and never give in.

She almost lost him and she doesn't think she could have kept going, could have survived the Pegasus galaxy without him.

"You okay?" he asks eventually, after the wind has picked up and the sun has started to rise behind the clouds, orange and pink and startlingly beautiful given the night they've just had.

"I don't know," she says honestly. She pulls back slightly to look at him, trailing her fingers lazily over the grey in his sideburns and the lines on his face that weren't there a few days ago. "But I think I will be."


End file.
